Ricegrowers snubbed in irrigation funding bid

Wed 13 Jul 2011, 9:08 AM AEST

There is concern the delay in water saving projects in the Murrumbidgee Valley could hurt local communities when the revised Murray-Darling Basin Plan is released.

The Ricegrowers' Association of Australia applied for $30 million funding for 85 projects in the second round of the Federal Government's On Farm Irrigation Efficiency Program but not one project secured funding.

The association's executive director, Ruth Wade, says $8 million has been approved for projects the association wants to run in the Murray Valley.

Ms Wade says she hopes water allocations for the Murrumbidgee will not be discriminated against when the new plan comes out.

"The whole idea of this project is to help us bridge the gap between where we are now and what the final number might look like," she said.

"That's why it's disappointing in the Murrumbidgee, that we can continue doing farm work to build our efficiencies and return water to the environment which would help us close the gap."

She believes the outcome is linked to the high price of water in the Murrumbidgee.

"It's probably regarded as more secure and also there's a much different mix of high security and general security water in the Murrumbidgee than there is in the Murray," she said.

"So clearly, a number of projects that were in our submission for the Murrumbidgee included high security water which is quite high value water, compared to general security in other valleys."

Ms Wade says the ricegrowers' association is now calling on the Federal Government to explain why it has rejected the 85 water saving projects.

"We would hope that there would have been some sort of recognition that water is not the same in every valley in the southern connected system," she said.

"That's an argument we'll now take up with the Government.

"There's still another $50 million available in the third round of this project and we need to work hard now to make sure we get a significant percentage of round three."